The
Guardian Owls: The Empowered Protection of Earth-Fire Temple

Laura
deBaun

Laura
deBaun has been a devotee since 1988. She is a California Licensed
Marriage and Family Therapist. For the last fifteen years, she has been
caring for Holy Sites at the Mountain
Of Attention Sanctuary. Laura:
There is an outdoor Holy Site here at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary
called Earth-Fire Temple. Each
day the squirrels would go into the Temple and messily eat all the many fresh
flowers that are placed in the Temple daily as devotional offerings. In early
1998, in an attempt to dissuade the squirrels, I placed a large, plastic, horned
owl outside the Temple Structure. This natural enemy replica was supposed to scare
them. It did not work at all.

Avatar Adi Da, who had been in
Fiji for a time, returned to the Sanctuary in July of that same year. Soon after
arriving, He walked through the Sanctuary, visiting all the Holy Sites, including
this one. Upon seeing the plastic owl He pointed to it and instructed a devotee
accompanying Him to place it on the ledge just below His photograph in the structure.
He said the owl was now the “guardian” of the Temple. Immediately after this day,
the squirrels no longer interfered with the flowers around Adi Da's photograph,
but they still enjoyed all the other flowers in the Temple! One
of Adi Da’s Ruchira Sannyasin Orderdevotees later suggested to us that we gift Him with some animal fetishes
(representational stone carvings) which could be Empowered by Him and then buried
at the Temple. This was particularly appropriate here because it is an elemental
and earthy site.I located some small (about one inch and a half high),
really nice squirrel and owl fetishes, along with a little "feeding” bowl. I put
all of these in the Temple over night, so they could combine with the energies
of this Holy Site. Then these were given to Adi Da with a request for His Blessing
that the squirrels would respect the Temple and stay away. Adi Da enjoyed getting
the fetishes, and immediately filled the little bowl with corn. He kept these
fetishes in His House close by Him. As far as I know they are still in there.
It
seemed to me and others that Adi Da was “working with” the squirrel population
through these fetishes. He was communicating that this formal Holy Site is not
their place by Empowering the plastic owl with His actual Physical Presence that
day and from a distance through the symbolic owland
squirrel fetishes I gave Him. The plastic owl in the Temple began to actually
feel like a fierce guard keeping the bold squirrels in their place. It gained
a presence and an alive energy that it did not formerly have. Whenever I see similar-looking
owls set out in people’s yards, I can see that they are just plastic molds sitting
there, whereas the one at Earth-Fire Temple has a quality of energy and substance.
It has been infused with energy by association with Avatar Adi Da. So even the
ordinary plastic owls are a potent reminder to me of Adi Da’s Spiritual
Power, which goes beyond conventional ideas of the limited body-mind.Some months later, I received a carved, wooden owl
about two inches tall from Adi Da for the Temple. This owl had been in His bedroom
for some time. I understood that by spending time in one of Avatar Adi Da’s personal
environments this little wooden owl had become infused with His Spiritual Force
and thus also become Empowered for whatever was Beloved Adi Da’s Intent. I
immediately placed the little owl beneath His photographic Image inside the Temple.
After that, not one flower was disturbed during the period when I served there.
The squirrels were still around, living happily in the trees nearby, and even
visiting the Temple sometimes, but they no longer disturbed the flowers we adorned
the Temple with each day. But this was not mere magic. An important aspect of
keeping the squirrels away was the intensity of the puja of Invocation that was
done daily at that Holy Site. As long as this was maintained, the squirrels did
not eat the flowers. There were a few times when the puja was not as strong, and
the squirrels ate the flowers. This was an indicator that the puja of Invocation
of Adi Da as the Divine Being had to be intensified once again.

I
am always touched, and Instructed, by Avatar Adi Da's Mysterious ways of benignly
working with, and Blessing, all creatures whether human or non-human. He truly
helped us to live in harmony with the little squirrels, while maintaining the
Spiritual integrity of the Temple.